


No, Time, thou shalt not boast

by karlamartinova



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-10
Updated: 2013-03-10
Packaged: 2017-12-04 21:35:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/715345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karlamartinova/pseuds/karlamartinova
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He just stands there in his coat and leather gloves, and he still reeks of support and she hates him for it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No, Time, thou shalt not boast

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by persiflage, thank you!

 

She saw him even though he very much tried to blend in the shadows. But she came from them too, knew that some things you see only in the corner of your eye. And James Bond read the same rulebook. M tightens the coat around her middle, tries to shake out the cold but it isn’t possible. The world lost its warmth. There won’t be anyone turning the heater to the right temperature, no one waiting for her with a hot cup of tea. M feels like she just lost another part of the person she used to be.

The priest is talking about Reginald now, about his charity work at church, about their children and Lauren sneaks her hand into hers and M turns and sends her a small smile. It says “thank you” and “I love you” at once; she hopes it says “sorry” too. It was her youngest daughter who got the first call. She was stuck at the meeting, arguing with both Bond and some bureaucrat at the same time. Both wanted to win and both had lost, and then she had found the message.

“Please, Mrs. Fletcher,” the priest calls her up and she feels her feet turn into stone. She can’t go up there and talk about a man she didn’t know. They were married for more than 40 years but secrets between them hoarded till there wasn’t anything else. She had her own life and so had he, they went together to family gatherings and parties his business partners organized, but it was just a part of the deal. You’ll be part of my life and I would be a part of yours. And Victoria Fletcher suddenly feels more uncertain than she ever did.

Lauren squeezes her hand, giving a comfort she feels she doesn’t deserve but it finally makes her stand up. The way up the stairs is more exhausting that it should be and it has nothing to do with her age, M hears distant bells, her life slipping away because her connection to the real world exists no more. She is just the head of MI6 now, not a wife or mother or grandmother. All those titles belonged to her only when Reginald was around; he kept in touch with their kids, invited them over and organized trips to visit them. It’s all gone now and a deep regret clasps at her insides.

She holds herself together, ignores the tears clinging at the edge of her eyes and looks at the crowd. Her eyes find Bond and he looks straight at her. She sees her agent, a man returning from death numerous times, someone she betrayed and lied to, and yet he’s there sending her a support she isn’t ready to admit she needs.

“Thank you for coming,” she says into the microphone. She’s sure he knows it’s for him.

 

 

 

 

The house is cold when she arrives, it’s no surprise but instead of trying to figure out how to turn on the heating, M just leaves her coat on. A glass of 25 years old whisky follows right after and then she sits on the couch and stares into nothingness. The alcohol burns her sore throat but she enjoys it, maybe she hasn’t forgotten how to feel just yet. Maybe this is all a test to find out if there’s any humanity left in her.

And if she closes her eyes tight enough, she would hear Reginald in the kitchen. He would be preparing tea and cutting some bread for her but no matter how hard she tries, there’s only silence. She takes a gulp, it’s loud and obscene and it makes her angry, so very angry. She had let him die, didn’t see him getting older and weaker and when there was no time left she was too far away to say “goodbye”. The tears finally win the battle and she hates it, hates herself so much she flings the empty glass across the room. It ends with a loud thud on the carpet. It doesn’t even break. It feels like a metaphor.

But she won’t allow that, won’t allow one glass to shatter her. She’s strong and independent and she's managed on her own till now and she would continue. She wouldn’t give Reginald the satisfaction of seeing her broken; she needs to break something else instead. When she turns, determined to destroy all the glass in her cabinet, she comes face to face with Bond.

He just stands there in his coat and leather gloves, and he still reeks of support and she hates him for it.

“What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing here?” Her voice slips back into her office persona, but her hands betray the fact that she isn’t that person today. They’re shaking, like the first bricks you ease before the whole wall falls apart.

At least he has a decency to look sheepish, his voice sounds different though. “I thought you might not want to be alone tonight,” he whispers and his voice has a raspy quality, and for a moment she thinks that the flu is making rounds around her department, but then she realizes that’s not the reason. He feels for her, pretends he understands. He’s sad because he knows she should be. He’s a far better human she ever tried to be.

She isn’t ready to let him crack her, not now and not ever. “So you thought. Maybe next time you need to realize who I am before you waltz into my home thinking I’m someone needing saving,” she huffs, and her voice goes louder and louder, and her hands are shaking more and more. “I don’t need anyone,” she’s yelling at this point and her breath is suddenly gone and her eyes are wet, and she spins away from him because the cracks are getting bigger and bigger and she feels herself falling.

To her horror, she hears him coming closer. “I know,” he whispers. “I don’t need anyone too. It’s the way we are, built to exist on our own, to rely on no one,” his tone is changing and she wants him to stop so desperately she closes her eyes and wishes him away. It’s still doesn’t work and now she feels the heat of his body on her back. “I know, so you don’t have to pretend otherwise.” His hand lands on her shoulder and she can’t help it, she reaches up and touches it. It’s the only “thank you” he could get at this point.

They stay like that, both afraid to move but for very different reasons. M tries not to think about this, not to analyse how much she is putting her own career in jeopardy just for letting him stay for another second, minute. But as well, she’s finally admitting how much she needs that comfort from someone who could understand. During the wake people touched her shoulder, her hands and arms all the time, they told her how amazing Reginald was and she wanted to scream that she was the only person who didn’t know. Their comfort meant nothing, but Bond’s, Bond’s meant and could mean more, and she’s afraid she’s just letting him see it.

“I think you should leave now,” she blurts out before the words die in her throat. His hand slides off her shoulder but he doesn’t move. M can feel his breath stop, it’s almost unnoticeable but she'd learnt to notice better than she knows how to be a mother. And every second he doesn’t take her words into consideration make them less and less spoken. But she needs the control back, needs to feel something familiar, something that won’t destroy but build, and M turns towards her agent with every intention of being that person.

His eyes are clouded and his posture speaks of uncertainty. It confuses her. “I said you should leave, Bond.” She forces ice into her voice and he almost flinches. And there’s hesitation in his movements, they’re slow and too clumsy for the otherwise elegantly moving man. It looks like he doesn’t want to go and it makes her feel things she shouldn’t. Never allow other people to see your weakness, she had taught her agents, Bond too. But he’s barren before her, sad and broken, and she tries very much to understand.

“What’s it like?” The question both shocks and surprises her. She was sure he’s leaving, sure that whatever they've started tonight is about to end. But something’s holding him back and somehow his question is the biggest clue to that particular mystery. But M doesn’t want to know what he’s asking but that doesn’t mean that she can’t kill the cat right now.

“What?” she asks and it comes out much softer than she intended. So maybe she really wants to know, maybe talking about Bond will make her forget, at least for a second, that her own life just ended in a very cruel way. Victoria Fletcher died, M survived, but M is just a letter, just a title. It means something only in the shadows.

He tries to show her, motions all around himself and says “this” like it means more than a word you put before a noun to show which one you mean. The desperate look he wears, it means something too, she saw it before, she saw it this morning when she was applying her make-up, choosing the right black clothes and comfortable shoes. He means life, he means ordinary, he means all those things they usually aren’t allowed to have.

It only reminds her how much she wasted the only chance she had. It makes her chuckle, it sounds sad and broken, and she’s so glad that her tears are dried now. “It’s gone, Bond, it’s gone before you realize you have it.” She’s more honest with him than she ever was with anyone and it feels liberating. She could pretend she had loved her husband; that she knows everything that there is to know about her daughters but that would be a lie, and telling the truth in their line of work is surprisingly easy.

Bond nods, like he understands, and maybe he does a little and it makes everything even more natural because next moment he makes a step and she makes one too. His hand grabs at her neck and hers end holding onto his coat. The kiss is almost brutal, their lips bruise and bleed but she needs it, maybe more than him. They need ordinary and are too blind to realize they wouldn’t be able to survive it.

Her coat falls on the floor, his follows shortly after and M pushes him backwards and he walks like he has eyes in the back of his head, and then she realizes there’s a mirror behind her. She wants him to end in the armchair where Reginald used to read his morning papers but he has other plans, spins them around and suddenly she’s the one sitting and Bond is kneeling at her feet.

M knows he has some serious worshipping issues going on but she’s beyond caring now. He’s slowly removing her shoes, puts them neatly near the chair and she watches his head moving from side to side and it should be the best time to put stop to this, to finally make him leave. But she doesn’t want to, regret is unprofessional but it’s human, and his hands trailing up her legs are making her thoughts anything but professional.

She wants to watch him, watches in fascination as he pushes her black skirt away and reaches inside to pull at her stockings. He could just tear them, push hard enough and they would fall part but he wants to do everything slowly, he wants to torment her, she realizes, but maybe he wants to torment himself too.

The fabric touches her skin and it hisses, it’s pleasure just because it’s someone else doing the mundane task and she tries to imagine him doing it all the time. Helping her dress, fastening the buttons, tying on the scarf, and all those images makes her breath hitch, he’s on his knees now and she feels he’ll be on them for a while.

“It’s unhealthy,” a voice in the back of her head whispers but she ignores it, instead buries her hand in his hair. It’s almost motherly, but his smile could be devilish too just because he’s parting her legs now, and she takes a deep breath before she feels his breath on the inside of her thighs.

She can’t remember the last time Reginald did this to her, it was too long ago when they had no children and bills and agents in front of their house, and she never blamed him, she was the one never at home, never the one with time to spend by slow love-making. She made him her secretary and he agreed without knowing. And she never really slept with her subordinates unless the mission demanded it.

And she remembers those times too, but then Bond pushes her knickers to side and she can’t think anymore. It’s new and not exactly unwelcome because she spent her life thinking about anything but herself, and she grips the chair and his hair and moans despite very much trying not to. But that’s his ultimate goal and when she comes, he doesn’t look smug or victorious. He looks like himself, and M palms his cheek and bends down to kiss him.

It’s difficult to imagine what would change, what would be different and if anything would be. She carries a new title now and she would need someone to come and prepare the house for her arrival; she could make Tanner remind her of all the important dates. Her life could go on in the shadows the same way, and in the daylight Victoria Fletcher would be a grieving widow and attentive grandmother. It seems easy but Bond is one thing in the equation that could never be that way.

He’s dangerous and reckless, he’s lost and broken, and she knows he’s looking for something she could never give him but she still leads him towards her bedroom. Because she could pretend otherwise, she could forget who she was but her life could never be simple and uncomplicated. And Reginald had married her despite knowing that.


End file.
